Cleta (Black Veil)

This painting of Cleta started out as a study, then a couple of studies, and finally a full fledged painting. I painted over the same support as I worked back and forth trying to get close to a target.

The last rendering wasn’t even close to anything that I wanted to depict – so channeling Titian – I turn the canvas towards the wall for a couple of months. When I was on a vacation in January, I turned her around and wondered what I was going to do with this.

Since I still had the mask on it, and the seal was preserved, I decided to do something I always wanted to do with a painting.

After having a preparatory talk with myself where I identified certain sections to preserve and gestures I wanted to explore, I dived in.

Afterward, i was surprised and pleased. A friend saw it and said, “Oh, I would love to see a whole series of that!”

The people currently in the queue for the next Black Veil series are Kelly, Alexis, Ken, and Eric.